Specific Aims: Keloids are benign collagenous tumors that develop during an exaggerated wound healing response of the skin. Even though keloids occur in less than 1% of the overall US population, they occur in 4.5% to 16% of African Americans. They have a 45-100% recurrence rate after surgical excision. While keloids are clearly familial and can have autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive modes of inheritance in some families, the gene(s) responsible have not been identified. We propose to map the gene(s) that cause keloids in African-American families by the following specific aims: 1. Ascertain and recruit individuals from African-American families with multiple affected individuals. Blood samples will be collected from as many family members as possible, both keloid formers and non-formers. DNA will be isolated from these samples for genetic analyses. 2. Test microsatellite markers for linkage to keloids. Initial analyses will focus on chromosome 14q22-23, where we have recently identified markers that appear to co-segregate with keloids in one African-American kindred.